NEW RELEASES (27.10.23)

A new book is a promise of good times ahead. Click through for your copies:

Everything I Know about Books: An insider view of publishing in Aotearoa edited by Odessa Owens and Theresa Crewdson $35
A really very interesting book about everything that happens to a book as it passes between the mind of the writer and the mind of the reader. Recommended! The list contributors reads like a Who’s Who of the book trade in Aotearoa: Foreword - Witi Ihimaera; Introduction: Everything we know about teaching publishing - Odessa Owens & Theresa Crewdson; Te korihi a te huia: The space for Maori storytelling - Pania Tahau-Hodges; How to edit a poem - Chris Tse; Tomorrow will be the same as this, pretty much - Sarah Pepperle; Festival of dreams: Literary events as world-building - Claire Mabey; The American publishing industry and your Wi-Fi signal - Chloe Gong; How to publish less-heard voices - Ash Davida Jane & Stacey Teague; How to review a book - Charlotte Grimshaw; Why should anyone care? - Lana Lopesi; I learned it at the movies: What film and TV can teach us about publishing—and what they get wrong - Claire Murdoch; An industry of rejection - Angelique Tran Van Sang; Having your book edited is a bit like going through a breakup - Madison Hamill; From the Kiddie-Corner: Some insights into the world of children's book publishing - Lynette Evans; My audiobook epic - Clayton Carrick-Leslie; Story sovereignty in self-publishing - Qiane Matata-Sipu; An Edmonds story - Dom Visini & Alison Shucksmith; On editing your friends - Ashleigh Young; Wild card - Selina Tusitala Marsh; Pushing out the margins - Adrienne Jansen; Reflections from a small Pacific publisher + a manifesto of sorts - Faith Wilson; How to commission - Holly Hunter; Scenes on the screen inside my head - Michael Bennett; Publishing by the book: The Whitireia classroom and beyond - Lauren Donald; Why we need new typefaces: Thoughts from the frontline of type - Kris Sowersby; Sweet Mammalian: Messy, sexy, biased, dirty - Hannah Mettner; Lessons from the business end of the business - Becky Innes; Gunk (mereology) - Joanna Cho; How to avoid defamation - Steven Price; She had me at the cows: The making of a modern classic - Mary McCallum; Taking New Zealand books offshore - Peter Dowling; Waharoa: An (Indigenous) hero's journey into the world of publishing - Nadine Anne Hura; Synapses are how booksellers sell books - Tilly Lloyd; Collective disruption: The art of art book making - Clare McIntosh; Big pond: Experiences in UK publishing - Katie Haworth; On the power of festivals - Rachael King; Swipe card and a dream: Advice for publishing interns - Damien Levi; How to publish a non-fiction bestseller - Jenny Hellen; Valuing two hundred years of Maori books - Jacinta Ruru; From Colenso to Catton: A quick skim through two centuries of book publishing in Aotearoa - Elizabeth Caffin; Centred somewhere else - Marian Evans; Who owns the stories? Adventures in copyright - Sam Elworthy; Having sextuplets: A case study - Trish Harris; I wrote The Porangi Boy for kids like me - Shilo Kino; writers festivals are fucking weird eh - Dominic Hoey; How to be literary philanthropists - Mary & Peter Biggs; Why publishing matters: Behind the scenes in a museum - Sean Mallon; Bringing stories to Aotearoa, curiously - Julia Marshall; How to bankroll a book: Paper may grow on trees-but money doesn't - Malcolm Burgess; Thoughts on correctness - Anna Jackson-Scott; Reps on the road - Marthie Markstein; Prediction: your life will come to this - Jane Arthur; The crooked path to a picture book - Gavin Bishop; From multinational to multitasking - Kevin Chapman; Kia puawai te aroha ki te reo - Mike Dreaver; How to rock self-publishing - Steff Green; More than a numbers game: A view from PANZ - Craig Gamble; The curious reader: Championing books - Kiran Dass; Publishing Nicky Hager - Robbie Burton; Paula Morris reads your emails - Paula Morris; Everything I know about publishing in other languages - Ya-Wen Ho; How to design a book: A focus on covers - Alan Deare; To publish or not to publish, is that the question? - Anahera Gildea; How to publish a blue whale - Susan Paris; Paper trail: The evolution of academic publishing - James L Savage; How to smash the system - Murdoch Stephens & Brannavan Gnanalingam; Joan picks Joan's Picks - Joan Mackenzie; Here's what happens when no one shows up to your writers event - Madeleine Chapman; The Changeover: From page to screen - Stuart McKenzie; And the winner is... - Nicola Legat. Published to mark thirty years of the Whitireia publishing course.

Patu: The New Zealand Wars by Gavin Bishop $40
A stunning, large-format, visual history of the New Zealand Wars of the 1800s, suitable for both children and adults. Discover the key people, perspectives and battles of the New Zealand Wars in this powerfully told and richly illustrated visual history. Auē! Te mamae! Navigate the defining moments of the wars, visit the battle sites and explore the sweeping change that took place in Aotearoa during the 19th century. Guiding readers through the bitter armed clashes over land and sovereignty, PATU is an essential book for every shelf.
>>Find out more and look inside this excellent book.
>>Extraordinary circumstances.

The Glutton by A.K. Blakemore $37
Sister Perpetue is not to move. She is not to fall asleep. She is to sit, keeping guard over the patient's room. She has heard the stories of his hunger, which defy belief: that he has eaten all manner of creatures and objects. A child even, if the rumours are to be believed. But it is hard to believe that this slender, frail man is the one they once called The Great Tarare, The Glutton of Lyon. Before, he was just Tarare. Well-meaning and hopelessly curious, born into a world of brawling and sweet cider, to a bereaved mother and a life of slender means. The 18th Century is drawing to a close, unrest grips the heart of France and life in the village is soon shaken. When a sudden act of violence sees Tarare cast out and left for dead, his ferocious appetite is ignited, and it's not long before his extraordinary abilities to eat make him a marvel throughout the land. The stupendous new novel from the author of The Manningtree Witches.
”One of the most remarkable novels of the year.” —Guardian
 “An embarrassment of riches. A sensory assault fit to slap any reader awake with its gorgeous glut of baroque prose and wise, poised lessons on life, pleasure, class, desire, and love.” —Kiran Millwood Hargrave
>>The man who ate everything.

The Puppets of Spelhorst by Kate DiCamillo and Julie Morstad $28
Once, there was a king. And a wolf. And a girl with a shepherd’s crook. And a boy with a bow and arrow. And also, there was an owl... They were puppets, and they were waiting for a story to begin. Carried off in an old trunk, the puppets find not only their own story but find themselves also acting out a story written by a girl in the house they find themselves in — and whose story will take flight from this puppet show? Thoughtful, well written, and completely charming.
>>Look inside this beautiful book!

Nails and Eyes by Kaori Fujino (translated from Japanese by Kendall Heitzman) $25
A young girl loses her mother, and her father blindly invites his secret lover into the family home to care for her. As she obsessively tries to curate a pristine life, this new interloper remains indifferent to the girl, who seems to record her every move - and she realises only too late all that she has failed to see. With masterful narrative control, ‘Nails and Eyes’ — appearing in English for the first time — builds to a conclusion of disturbing power. Paired with two additional stories of unsettled minds and creeping tension, it introduces a daring new voice in Japanese literature.
>>’You OK for Time?’
>>’Quiet Night’.

Nipponia Nippon by Kazushige Abe (translated from Japanese by Kerim Yasar) $25
Isolated in his Tokyo apartment, seventeen-year-old Haruo spends all his time online, researching the plight of the endangered Japanese crested ibis, Nipponia nippon. Living on an allowance from his parents, he drops ever further into a fantasy world in which he alone shares a special connection with the last of these noble birds, held at a conservation centre on the island of Sado. His conclusion is simple: it is his destiny to free the birds from a society that does not appreciate them, by whatever means necessary. With his emotional state becoming increasingly erratic, he begins to source weapons and prepares for a reckoning.

The Penguin New Zealand Anthology: Fifty stories for fifty years in Aotearoa edited by Harriet Allan $45
Amelia Batistich, Evana Belich, Norman Bilbrough, Ben Brown, Eleanor Catton, Craig Cliff, Marilyn Duckworth, David Eggleton, Fiona Farrell, Sia Figiel, Janet Frame, Maurice Gee, James George, Fiona Kidman, Patricia Grace, Charlotte Grimshaw, Dominic Hoey, Witi Ihimaera, Stephanie Johnson, Lloyd Jones, Tim Jones, Fiona Kidman, Shonagh Koea, Sarah Laing, Sue McCauley, Tina Makereti, Selina Tusitala Marsh, Owen Marshall, Tze Ming Mok, Kelly Ana Morey, Ronald Hugh Morrieson, Paula Morris, Carl Nixon, Julian Novitz, Sue Orr, Vince O'Sullivan, John Puhiatau Pule, Sarah Quigley, Frazer Rangihuna, Victor Rodger, Frank Sargeson, Tracey Slaughter, CK Stead, Bernard Steeds, Alice Tawhai, Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, Elsie Uini, Peter Wells, Albert Wendt, Judith White, Alison Wong.

The Art Thief: A true story of love, crime, and a dangerous obsession by Michael Finkel $37
For centuries, works of art have been stolen in countless ways from all over the world, but no one has been quite as successful at it as the master thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Carrying out more than 200 heists over nearly ten years — in museums and cathedrals all over Europe — Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend who worked as his lookout, stole more than 300 objects, until it all fell apart in spectacular fashion.
"The Art Thief, like its title character, has confidence, elan, and a great sense of timing. It is propelled by suspense and surprises. This ultra-lucrative, odds-defying crime streak is wonderfully narrated by Finkel, in a tale whose trajectory is less rise and fall than crazy and crazier.. Part of what makes Finkel's book so much fun is that, without exception, Breitwieser's strategies are insane." —The New Yorker

Around the World in 80 Games: A mathematician unlocks the secrets of the greatest games by Marcus du Sautoy $38
Why do some games seem to be universal while others have a particular connection to the culture of the people playing them? Around the World in 80 Games is about the mathematics of chance, game theory, gamification, gaming strategies and computer games. Traversing the globe, Marcus du Sautoy looks at the genesis of games new and old, explores how to invent a good game and explains the fascination of a popular lockdown game.
"With the lightest of touches du Sautoy manages persuasively to show how games are both narratives that speak about us and structures whose ideas underlie everything in our known universe. And on top of it, the book serves as an absolutely indispensable compendium. Rainy weekends in Cornwall will now be welcomed.” —Stephen Fry

Foxlight by Katya Balen $20
Fen and Rey were found curled up small and tight in the fiery fur of the foxes at the very edge of the wildlands. Fen is loud and fierce and free. She feels a connection to foxes and a calling from the wild that she's desperate to return to. Rey is quiet and shy and an expert on nature. She reads about the birds, feeds the lands and nurtures the world around her. They are twin sisters. Different and the same. Separate and connected. They will always have each other, even if they don't have a mother and don't know their beginning. But they do want answers. Answers to who their mother is and where she might be. What their story is and how it began. So when a fox appears late one night at the house, Fen and Rey see it as a sign — it's here to lead them to their truth, find their real family and fill the missing piece they have felt since they were born. But the wildlands are exactly that — wild. They are wicked and cruel and brutal and this journey will be harder and more life changing than either Fen or Rey ever imagined...

The Lost Library by Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass $21
When a mysterious little free library (guarded by a large orange cat) appears overnight in the small town of Martinville, eleven-year-old Evan plucks two weathered books from its shelves, never suspecting that his life is about to change. Evan and his best friend Rafe quickly discover a link between one of the old books and a long-ago event that none of the grown-ups want to talk about. The two boys start asking questions whose answers will transform not only their own futures, but the town itself.

The Natural Garden: Landscape ideas for New Zealand gardens by Xanthe White $60
A revised and updated edition of this standard work on garden planning in Aotearoa. Well photographed, but also with layout plans and plant directories for all the various sorts of gardens: flower, native, rural, dry, inner city, productive, subtropical ,and coastal.
>>Look inside.

A Therapeutic Journey by Alain de Botton $42
A Therapeutic Journey follows the arc from mental crisis and collapse to convalescence and recovery. Written with kindness, knowledge and sympathy, it is both a practical guide and a source of consolation and companionship in what might be some of our loneliest, most anguished moments. Alain de Botton explores how we can cope with a variety of forms of mental pain and illness, from the mild to the severe. It considers how and why we might become ill; how we can explain things to friends, family and colleagues; how we can find our ways towards recovery; and how we can build resilience, so as to live wisely alongside our difficulties.
>>Illustrated throughout.